9 Responses to “Boy Things / Girl Things”

F2T refusing to give up “birth control”?! Does she mean she won’t stop taking hormonal birth control (eg, estrogen) because she knows males will still try to fuck her and make her pregnant?
Or is she making a smartass (and totally correct) jab at men throwing such mantrums about even the simple act of wearing a condom?

It’s probably not that complicated or self-aware, though. This person is either a lesbian who is transitioning to “feel straight”, but knows she will forever be a potential target of rape due to her uterus; or a straight woman who will continue to fuck men after her transition.
Regardless, it is depressing.

I think the saddest thing here is the thought that to “be female”, one has to give up anything technical, or showing any form of strength, independence, or willingness to take a risk. To “be a man”, one apparently can’t care about grooming, or creating works of beauty, wear socks, or have a sense of aesthetics.

I wish these people could see my family – strong women – engineers, biologists, into video games, and radio waves, science fiction and all things nerd. Or perhaps they could spend some time around men who aren’t afraid to wear pink or like “My Little Pony” (which quite a few men do).

I can’t but wonder how many people made the decision to transition because they didn’t fit the little pink or blue boxes that society tried to shove them in. There shouldn’t be much of a list, because unless you are talking about reproduction or muscle mass, there is nothing to give up. If a man wants to cry into his rainbow dash plush toy at night when he’s hurt, good for him. If a woman wants to drink beer, play tackle football, lift weights, and be competitive, so be it.

The medical establishment isn’t helping things, either. One of the things that really pissed me off about the whole transition thing was how people are judged on their ability to meet the stereotypes – to be the perfect “stepford wife”, or emulate Al Bundy. They take people at their most vulnerable, push them down a path that won’t make many of them happy, then deny treatment until they can fake a stereotype from a bad 50’s sitcom.

Yanno that whole trans trope about “trans are forced into gender stereotypes by gatekeepers” is really total crap, isn’t it? I mean, it isn’t gatekeepers forcing trans to die pumping hardware grade silicone into themselves until they have hips the size of watermelons, is it? In the states, where you and I are from, informed consent hormones are handed out like candy at the free clinics. And if you don’t want to go downtown you can just get them shipped to you within 48 hours from ordering online. The new WPATH guidelines (which exist to exonerate medical providers from any negative consequences related to prescribing trans related medical and surgical “treatments”) advise that no therapy or screening of any kind should be indicated. So really, the trans trope you invoke here: that trans people are somehow coerced into gender stereotypes- is total crap. An old, tired, trans trope that no one is buying anymore.
Not a single one of the americans in this post is acting due to medical establishment standards. They are acting on their own accord. And I’m really surprised that you would trot out this lame trope Kathrin. I can only assume that you intended to say something more nuanced than that, which was somehow lost on me, because you usually have really good things to say.

> I can only assume that you intended to say something more nuanced than that, which was somehow lost on me, because you usually have really good things to say.

Nope, nothing particularly nuanced here.

I’ve been to a number of “informed consent” clinics (which will literally give you whatever you ask for), and ordered various medications online when I felt I couldn’t afford it any other way.

I have also been to the providers I was talking about.

I started down the road I chose in Texas, and was directed (by some people I knew) to an Endocrinologist, who sent me to a therapist.

During my therapy sessions, there wasn’t a lot of focus on why I felt this way, rather, she spent quite a lot of time on appearance and mannerisms. “Try this type of makeup, or that makeup”. “Have you considered wearing skirts?”, “You cross your legs in a very feminine matter”, etc.

After a few sessions, I realized that her “definition” of what a transsexual “should be” was completely incompatible with the women I knew and respected. I discontinued seeing her shortly thereafter.

This was a lot of why I started to question the gender narrative as it was told. It started to show me what role women were expected to play (at least by the people I had the misfortune to be “treated” by). The endocrinologist wasn’t much better.

It may be an “old trope”, but you have my word (for what it’s worth), it still happens. Do I think all medical practitioners do this? Of course not – I know better from personal experience. But it does happen, and those narratives are often the ones that people judge themselves against and try to internalize as their own, justifying themselves because they played with their sister’s barbies, or were into rough-and-tumble play.

> Not a single one of the americans in this post is acting due to medical establishment standards.

My daughter in her Sophomore year in High School had a English Lit class where the class exercises was to have the board split in half, where every single student was asked to stand up and as a female or male give a one word descriptor of their sex.

My daughter sat there and listened to 3/4 of the class stand up before it was her turn.

Many girls stood up and gave a lot of these conditioned pink answers.
All the boys stood up and gave conditioned blue answers.

My daughter stood up at 16yrs of age and her simple answer NAILED IT it all.

“Underestimated.”

I couldn’t have been prouder of her. I hold parents responsible for these types of answers. I witness parents blaming everything in society except themselves.

[…] as well as the LGBTQ movement as a whole, sees gender as something that happens in one’s head. Various items and activities are assigned to each gender. If one hangs out in radical circles and has never strongly fit in with fellow members of her sex […]